What Bannon’s CPAC speech got wrong

Chief White House strategist Steve Bannon’s “Dismantle The Administrative State” speech to CPAC was a great prosecution of D.C.’s unaccountable regulatory regime.

But it bears no resemblance to Donald Trump’s actual Big Government agenda.

Trump’s agenda of centralized command of the economy, through trade restrictions and expanded social spending, requires the administrative state to be even larger and more powerful.

What they’re really doing is reassigning the administrative state to other departments. Just look at Trump’s cuts to NEA, NEH, etc. He didn’t cut that spending and personnel from the budget and return that money and power to taxpayers. He simply shifted the spending to more powerful departments and called it a “cut.”

Under Trump the federal government will become even larger and more costly. The only difference is the eaters of productivity will be less visible, making their destructive influence even more pernicious.

Trump is not dismantling the administrative state. His singular goal is to make government a bigger and more powerful part of your life.

That is not conservatism. That is liberalism.

For example, that plan Trump offered during the campaign to give mothers six weeks of taxpayer-subsidized maternity leave? Not only did conservatives vehemently oppose the idea when Barack Obama proposed it, Trump is now considering expanding the new welfare entitlement to fathers, too. If you’re going to buy votes with other people’s money, go big.

That is not conservatism. That is liberalism.

Trump suggests forcing Americans to pay a 35 percent tax on goods made across the border, where labor costs are lower. Part of the reason for that is the costs of organized labor in the United States — union rules, union regulations, union dues, union political activity and lavish union boss salaries — are written into the price of many American goods.

If a liberal constituency is using their political influence to artificially increase prices, moving jobs over the border, how do you fix that by raising prices even more?

That is not conservatism. That is liberalism.
I’m working to abolish the EPA not just because it is abusive to farmers, ranchers and people who get out and produce, but because I oppose any form of government intervention in any and all voluntary activities and transactions.

Bannon’s speech hit all the right rhetorical notes, but the Trump orchestra is playing off liberal sheet music.